One of my biggest headaches when I build rolling stock, is having it look ‘complete’. Details such as grab irons and strap steps are easy enough to buy or make, but I’ve always had a problem with rivets. Ive tried every way to get them to look right. Drilling and inserting escutcheon pins looks great, but is a huge time sink. A punch and die is neat, but doesnt work on beams, or once you have the model assembled.
This past weekend, while wandering in the local Michael’s Crafts, I found a 1/16" “micro round” hole punch, manufacturerd by McGill, and the lightbulb went on. A quick $1.99 later, and I’m back in my shop.
Currently Im scratch building steel hoppers from styrene, roughly based on the Ingoldsby hoppers in Ely, Arizona. Mine are smaller, but still have the feel of them.
Anyway, I wanted to rivet much of the construction. Enter this punch, and some scrap 1/32 styrene:
With a pile of those done, I started gluing with a thin smear of styrene adhesive. The results can be seen below:
That’s all there is to it. Quick rivets, and you can put them on AFTER you build your models, or, you can use them to superdetail existing Bachmann, or other, plastic models.
Enjoy!
-=Bob